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First Mover Americas: Ether ETFs Struggle to Gain Traction in First Week
The latest price moves in crypto markets in context for Oct. 6, 2023.
Updated Oct 6, 2023, 3:13 p.m. Published Oct 6, 2023, 12:12 p.m.
This article originally appeared in First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily newsletter putting the latest moves in crypto markets in context. Subscribe to get it in your inbox every day.
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Ether and bitcoin were buoyed to one-month highs last week as six ether futures ETFs went live in the U.S. on Monday, with traders expecting high demand for the products. However, their performance was pretty muted. Less than $2 million were traded across the various ETFs on Monday, with poor volumes throughout the week prompting analysts to write down their bullish outlook and pivot to bitcoin investments instead. The ether futures ETFs had 0.2% of trading volume compared to BTC futures day 1 of trading. Some analysts pointed to a lack of institutional demand for ether and others said it’s due to the macroeconomic environment. “Interest rates are at 5.5%, if you list any kind of ETF in this environment you are going to see low volumes,” said Sui Chung, CEO of CF Benchmarks, in an interview with CoinDesk. “It's the same with equities ETF volumes this week," added Chung. "There might be more interest in ether futures ETFs as the macroeconomic situation changes but right now investors are too busy putting money into bank accounts.”
Blackbird Labs, an app and loyalty program that's attempting to connect restaurants and their customers via its crypto-powered app, announced on Wednesday it had raised a $24 million Series A led by the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Through Blackbird, which is built on Coinbase's Layer-2 Base blockchain, customers tap their phone on a near field communication (NFC) reader (the devices which allow smartphones to connect to payment readers) and create a non-fungible token (NFT) membership. The NFT is then minted when users “tap in” to the restaurant.
FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried committed financial crimes, co-founder Gary Wang said after taking the stand late Thursday. Wang, the fourth witness called by the U.S. Department of Justice in Bankman-Fried’s trial, said he committed wire fraud, securities fraud and commodities fraud alongside Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison, who ran Bankman-Fried's Alameda Research hedge fund, and former FTX executive Nishad Singh. (Wang, Ellison and Singh all pleaded guilty to charges shortly after Bankman-Fried was arrested.) “We gave special privileges to Alameda Research to allow it to withdraw unlimited funds from FTX and lied about it,” Wang said.
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What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
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Coinbase Sees Crypto Recovery Ahead as Liquidity Improves and Fed Rate Cut Odds Climb
The crypto exchange also took note of a so-called AI bubble that continues to go strong and a weaker U.S. dollar.
What to know:
- Coinbase Institutional is seeing a potential December recovery in crypto, citing improving liquidity and a shift in macroeconomic conditions that could favor risk assets like bitcoin.
- The firm's optimism is driven by rising odds of Federal Reserve rate cuts, with markets pricing in a 93% chance easing next week, and improving liquidity conditions.
- Several recent institutional developments, including Vanguard's crypto ETF policy reversal and Bank of America's greenlighting of crypto allocations, have contributed to bitcoin's rebound from recent lows.
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